In this day and age of environmentalism, too much time is spent in front of computers and not enough walking the land and actually observing what goes on “out there.”

In spite of urbanization, our society is completely dependent on the products of the countryside. Or, as one wag put it, “If you eat, you are part of agriculture.” What you eat determines what farmers and ranchers produce. In addition, what they produce has profound implications for landscape conservation since each food production system has differing effects on soil, water and wildlife. Some systems are much better than others in terms of landscape conservation, with extensive beef cattle ranching being the very best of all.

Cows efficiently convert grass and hay to people food. And over a cow’s lifespan it will eat far more grass and hay than grain. Big deal you say. However, grass and hay are perennial plants that cover the land with a permanent layer of vegetation, a “conservation blanket” if you will. This prevents soil erosion during rains and windstorms, and provides habitat for wildlife such as nesting ducks, songbirds and my beloved Sharp-tailed Grouse. Extensive beef production in ranch country is an agricultural system that promotes animal welfare, landscape conservation and wildlife preservation. I have thousands of hectares of ranchland in my constituency and the wildlife diversity never ceases to amaze me.

Critics of the cattle industry cite the plight of the rainforest, methane production and overgrazing as reasons to shut down the cattle industry, all the while ignoring the landscape conservation benefits of well-managed, extensive cattle ranching. To be blunt, cattle create an economic incentive to conserve, manage and create diverse and productive grasslands. Those great, and seemingly boring, vistas of native prairie in Saskatchewan and Alberta represent a treasure trove of wildlife and biodiversity. And it is still in existence because of ranchers.

This leads us to another argument of the cattle critics, namely that humans should bypass meat and directly consume the plant products such as grains and vegetables. The problem with that argument is that not all hectares are created equal. We have millions of hectares of sandy, sloping and fragile land that will produce grain crops for a few years, but as the soil is played out, higher and higher levels of inputs are required to grow crops during this downward spiral of soil degradation. Much better to have such fragile land covered with a conservation blanket of perennial vegetation that is cropped by a well-managed cattle herd. By the way, a purely plant-based human diet encourages the cultivation of more and more fragile, native grasslands.

As for the red meat is bad for you argument, I take the view that if you give up fat (and sugar and alcohol, too, for that matter) you may not live longer; it will just seem that way. Make your own call on that one, but I am here to live a little. As Clifton Fadiman wrote, “I have yet to meet a man who, with a good tournedos Rossini inside him, was not the finer for it, the more open to virtuous influences.”

So, when you’re about to tuck into a big juicy steak, ponder what it represents. That meal of Canadian ranched beef has contributed to landscape and wildlife conservation and kept generations of land stewards in the ranching business for the benefit of all of us.